Transcript: "Pivot" co-hosts Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway on "Face the Nation," March 19, 2023

The interview with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway was broadcasted on "Face the Nation" on Sunday, March 19, 2023.

Kara Swisher, who is from San Francisco, and Scott Galloway, who is from Miami, joined us today. In the interest of full disclosure, we want to point out that Galloway is a marketing professor at NYU, but also directly or indirectly involved with several firms who have had funds at the bank. I would like to begin with you here. What impact will this failure have on America's ability to innovate?

Scott was good to be with Margaret. The modern United States banking system is a miracle. We can grow the economy by turning short term deposits into long term loans. Do we have what Marjorie Taylor Greene wanted for the US to split in two? It's not between red and blue states, it's between venture capitalists in Silicon Valley who are trying to find a solution, and venture catastrophists who want to weaken the banking system in the U.S. There was a letter that was sent out in order to facilitate a transaction. Since there was a lot of catastrophizing going on in the system, people with a large interest in it have seen the price go up. Do we have any American's in Silicon Valley? Lawmakers and Americans are asking if we should be stopping Americans or disrupting them.

What are you thinking about? The agents of chaos are not known.

GALLOWAY: Well, people who pose for the social media algorithm, and in all caps say that chaos will ensue, that there will be lines around the banks, some will get their money out, most will not large venture capital firms who have tens of billions invested in tHe Capitalism on the way up and socialism on the way down is cronyism.

Many startup firms rely on this Silicon Valley lender to get their business started and they can't go to bigger banks. There is a question as to whether there is a knock-on effect where we see this large part of our economy crippled.

There is always money for them. There isn't enough rat holes to shove all the money in Silicon Valley down. They will get money. It's just that this bank was very close to them, including giving them personal mortgages, personal loans, and the fact that venture capitalists invested in them. They had a harder time with traditional banks and this bank was able to cater to them. Every Silicon Valley startup was in this bank and they had advisers from Silicon Valley. They spread it around. It's a bank that's too niche to cater to everyone. The bank run happened because a group of people reacted quickly when they realized they couldn't sell the bonds.

The CEO of TikTok is going to testify at the hearing this week and Margaret Brennan wants to know what's going to happen. According to CBS, the Justice Department is investigating a company that spied on US citizens and journalists. Some of the people doing this were in China. The parent company has stopped employing them. Does this happen at other companies?

It's in a different way. They are selling you advertising because we don't have a privacy bill. Whatever these companies want to do, they have lots of power. I call them information thieves, but they're for a different reason. That is to get you to advertise. It is a state-run government that makes it feel a little more frightening. If China wants to do it, they can do it even though Tiktok says they are rogue actors. That's the biggest worry here, because it's not only surveillance, but propaganda. They're doing it for business reasons when they dish it out on Facebook. Any government can come in there. All of these companies are worried about state actors, so we have to be very careful about what we give them.

Margaret Brennan said that news development throws some sand in the gears of progress on what ByteDance and TikTok were proposing as a way around the issue. The people don't want a ban. They don't want to be made to sell. Does this resolve itself?

America is waking up to the fact that there's a neural jack plugged into the heads of America's youth who spend more time on TikTok than every other media platform. The next generation of American civic, nonprofit, business, and military leaders, that just everyday feel worse about America, would be raised by the CCP if they didn't put their thumb on the scale of anti- American content. It is very simple to solve. There's a lot of evidence that theCCP might have been correct in their hope that we wouldn't be able to get out of our own way. They want to keep the world's premier propaganda tool and hundreds of billion of dollars in shareholder value. On the eve of the ban, they will decide if they can hold onto both of them, and they will agree to a spin.

What do you think you see here? The Washington Post put huge ads in the local papers. The commerce secretary was asked about a possible ban. The political element here is that the politician thinks you're going to lose every voter under 35 years old. If it's on the devices of 200 million Americans, what will happen?

There is an issue of people using it and it is very popular. It's a little less of a hold on teenagers because of advances made by other services. I don't think there will be a lot of protests by teens. I think you have to think about what will happen if they ban. There is a lot of US investors in this company. There is a lot of US investors interested in the decline of TikTok. It's very popular for politicians to use this as an anti-China and that's why they do. Some of it is bipartisan. Mark Warner is the same as Josh Hawley. Three years ago, four years ago, I wrote a piece saying that I don't trust the Communist Party and that I use TikTok on a burner phone. That is the problem. This is a propaganda device. What are we going to do about it? Why are US companies not allowed in China? It is very complicated. I'm not sure if I agree with the ban with Scott. It's difficult to protect people if it's not a U.S. company or somewhere else. It will be difficult for this company at this time.

For a long time, you have said that you don't feel safe using this device, which is on a device that you carry with you. You don't take a phone with you because of the risk. This is in the pockets of many Americans.

I don't use the social networking site. That's me, right? I don't trust any of them, but I don't trust the Communist Party of China as much as I think Mark Zuckerberg is.

Margaret Brennan said it was "just- wow." We are looking at the potential indictment of the 45th President of the United States, who is back on social media platforms, have there been any measures put in place that would limit the ability to use this as an organizing tool?

I don't know about you, but I find this kind of debate around First Amendment or speech or pretending it was a really difficult decision to be comical. It's easy to understand. These companies add shareholder value by an organization or individual. They either spend a lot of money on the platform or they create a lot of engagement. About a few days before Biden's inauguration, Meta kicked Trump off because he was about to become less enraging. He is about to spend a billion and a half on media. He should return to the platform. We had an insurrection when President Trump called for protests. They have an excuse not to put him on the platforms. At the end of the day, this is all about what drives shareholder value, not what connects us to the Commonwealth.

Margaret Brennan will leave it there on that cynical note. Always good to chat with Kara. We will be back soon.